OCTOBER. 171 



WIND-BORNE FOREIGNERS. 



Thus we see that all kinds of birds which migrate 

 over sea have an inherited knowledge of the kind 

 of wind which has always driven their ancestors, for 

 unnumbered ages, from their northern homes, and 

 are ready to take advantage of the first favourable 

 day for travel. When, if only for a single day, at the 

 right season of the year, the wind sets in the right 

 quarter, one can say with confidence, " This wind will 

 bring the fieldfares " (the earlier redwings having 

 previously arrived). Then we walk into the fields, 

 and lo ! " Chak-chak " cry the newly arrived field- 

 fares in chorus, as they drift away from our presence 

 out of the berried trees. Similarly, when, a little 

 earlier, the cold wind blew persistently from the 

 north-east and east, we could anticipate that unusual 

 visitors from the north-east would be carried to our 

 east coast ; and, sure enough, there came the ring- 

 ouzels, as well as the unusual flights of bramblings, 

 siskins, and other birds including at least one kind 

 which is so extremely rare as a " British " bird that, if 

 I had not journeyed daily, sometimes twice or thrice 

 a day, for a fortnight, to watch the flock of eighteen 

 little buntings, I should be reluctant to state their 

 presence as a fact. 



A DELUGE OF ROOKS. 



October 30. "Crow" migrants came to North 

 Norfolk in enormous numbers in the last week of 

 October. For several days without cessation flocks of 

 rooks and jackdaws drifted across the sky, following 



